Keywords
labour theory of value
value
political economy
Marxist political economy
measure
labour
How to Cite
Abstract
The so-called labour theory of value (LTV), once the pride of the whole Marxist political economy, over the years became the subject of its embarrassment. Its rejection within the leftist tradition, both by some philosophers as well as economists, is a part of a broader phenomenon called a “crisis of Marxism”. In result, a philosophically oriented part of Marxist theory, trying to free Marxism from defects of “economism”, also cutting it off from the benefits that may flow from the adoption of theoretical economics perspective. While some economic Marxists, in order to free the Marxist political economy from the shortcomings inherent in LTV also cut it off from the special status attributed to the notion of labour. Although later, LTV get acquitted from the charge of alleged logical contradiction, it was only in order to condemn it for oblivion for its alleged redundancy. In this article we will discuss the specifics of the Marxian version of LTV. The introduction gives four qualitative assumptions which, according to the author, determine the character of the Marxian version of the LTV. The first part outlines place that LTV holds in the history of economic thought. The second part focuses on the fate of the Marxian version of the LTV under the very Marxist tradition. The third part discusses the problem of value and its measurement. The fourth part is devoted to the analysis of the problem of labour and selection of the unit of its measurement, as well as tries to reconstruct Marx's theory of reproduction of employees through labour. The fifth part deals with the question of how to interpret a modern methodological status of the Marxian version of LTV. The article ends with a conclusion.References
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